A transformational journey into health and feelin' sexy!

Posts tagged ‘Recipes’

First off, happy holidays everyone! I hope you and your loved ones all had a wonderful Christmas 🙂

The past couple of weeks have been difficult in terms of staying on keto, but I stuck to my guns and I think in the end I didn’t do too badly. I even received a couple boxes of chocolates from some neighbours (who didn’t know I was on keto) even one that had a card that said “We hope you really really really like chocolate!” (I do… 😦 thanks for that.) but I didn’t even open the boxes! I took them over to my parent’s yesterday to share with the family but (conveniently) forgot them. In all honesty I didn’t mean to leave them there, but it’s probably for the best 😛

The last couple of days have been filled with lots and lots of baking and cooking. My mom suggested I take care of the appetizers and snacks before dinner, and suggested I make them all keto-friendly. With help from a fellow /r/keto redditer, /u/Craigasaurous and his awesome site full of great keto recipes… I put together a pretty decent sized spread 🙂

Sweets Plate

Savoury Plates

First off, I made a sweets plate:

Orange Chocolate Chunk CookiesThese turned out pretty good! By the time we went home there was only 1 left on the platter (and who really wants to be “that guy” who takes the last cookie?). The amusing thing about this recipe is that I didn’t have a zester, but I (naively) thought that I might be able to use my cheese grater. Well, it turns out that just doesn’t work, or maybe my cheese grater just isn’t sharp enough, or maybe it was because I bought mini honey mandarin oranges (with the idea that since they’re only about an inch in diameter, if I caved and ate an orange they’re portioned out so a single orange couldn’t possibly do much damage). So… I improvised! I peeled a mini orange or two and tossed the skins into my coffee grinder (I’m sure many of you are cringing right now) but hey, it worked! The other beauty of using mini honey mandarins is that when it came time to adding the freshly squeezed orange juice, one orange came out to almost exactly 1 tablespoon! And when I didn’t have a juicer… well, I used my garlic press and it worked like a charm 😛 one entire orange fit into the garlic press!Per cookie: 223 Calories, 21g Fat, 6g Protein, 7g Carbs, 3g Fibre, 4g Net Carbs

Lemon Rosemary Shortbread Cookies
I’ll start by mentioning I’m really not a fan of rosemary… I left it in the deviled eggs, but having the flavour in cookies just… seemed unappealing to me completely. Craigasaurous suggested that I tone down the lemon a bit if I plan to leave out the rosemary, so I also left out the lemon zest (which was helpful since I didn’t have any lemons nor a zester). I think they turned out pretty good as well, my Mom seemed to particularly like them. I think it could have used a little more lemon in it, so in the future (if I ever get a zester) I’ll probably leave in the lemon zest.Per Cookie: 113 Calories, 11g Fat, 3g Protein, 3g Carbs, 1g Fibre, 2g Net Carbs

Mock Snickers Bars
This was by far the most difficult to make… to start with I didn’t have any granulated stevia. I thought maybe I’d try substituting with granulated xylitol, but from what I read it was not even close to a 1:1 ratio in terms of sweetness, and the added dry powder would have given the bars a significantly different texture (if it even turned out at all). So I decided to substitute it 1:1 anyways and add a few extra drops of liquid stevia in hopes it would even out the sweetness. I think in the end it ended up being a bit too sweet for me, but my family seemed to love them. Aside from the sweetener dilemma, I had to toss out the first batch of peanut butter filling… it seemed to go from being of perfect texture and consistency, to an oily congealed mess in a fraction of a second. So I started that part over again and it turned out much better. The other issue was that the peanut butter part was very soft, whereas the chocolate was very hard… which made cutting it into squares very messy, so I ended up cutting bigger squares because it was such a pain in the ass; getting 10 squares out of the batch instead of the recommended 16 (which ultimately raised the carb count). I think that had to do with not having quite the right size of pan, so the layers of peanut butter and chocolate were a bit thicker than they were supposed to be. Anyways, as I said, although it didn’t look too pretty my family seemed to really like them, and I thought it was pretty good too (aside being being a little too sweet). I think of all the desserts on the sweets tray, this was probably the one that I would have the most trouble convincing someone that it had very few carbs.Per Square: 378 Calories, 33g Fat, 7g Protein, 9g Carbs, 4g Fibre, 5g Net Carbs

Next, I put together 2 savoury plates. Along with some slices of cheddar, havarti, and garlic sausage, I included:

Spiced Bacon Deviled Eggs
This was probably my personal favourite of all the appetizers I brought with me. I had made this before, so I knew it was definitely worth making again. Unfortunately though, this time around I left the bacon grease out of the yolk mixture as my brother is vegetarian (and left the bacon out of a few of the deviled eggs) which gave them a bit more of a mayonnaise taste than they should have had, but they were still really good.Per Egg (2 Halves): 175 Calories, 14g Fat, 8g Protein, 2g Carbs, 0g Fibre, 2g Net Carbs

Mini Grilled Ham & Cheese
This was definitely a family favourite. Of course I left the ham out of a couple of the sandwiches so my brother could give them a try, but as with the chocolate orange cookies, there was only 1 left on the platter by the time we left. These were slightly frustrating to make, but only because they were the last appetizer I made and by that time there was zero counter space left in the kitchen, and I had zero patience and very little sleep. So of course, when grilling them they started to burn, set the smoke detector off 3 times, and I had no where to put the frying pan… it was just. very. frustrating. Ultimately though, they turned out pretty delicious!Per Sandwich: 183 Calories, 16g Fat, 8g Protein, 3g Carbs, 1g Fibre, 2g Net Carbs

Bacon Crusted Frittata Muffins
This is another one that turned out a bit messy… I think the problem here was that my muffin tins are small? I’m not exactly sure to be honest, but when the recipe said “they will puff up” I expected it to rise… a little. However, when I checked on them half-way through the cooking time, they were spilled out all over the muffin tin and burning on the bottom of my oven 😦 In terms of taste though, they turned out pretty good, near-zero carb, and pretty filling as well.Per Muffin: 307 Calories, 21g Fat, 23g Protein, 0g Carbs, 0g Fibre, 0g Net Carbs

All in all, I think I did pretty well at not giving in. I ate a lot of the keto foods I brought, avoided the potatoes, stuffing, and sweet treats, and while I did go over my 25g daily limit, I only went up to 39g and seemingly have stayed in ketosis. In other news, one of the gifts I received this year was a digital food scale! This should definitely go a long way to helping me stay on keto!

Anyways, that’s about all I have to say… in terms of progress, I seem to have slowed, but not stalled. I can live with that since it’s the holidays and we’re all eating more than usual, but hopefully it will pick back up soon.

Fatburger… is as good for keto as it sounds!You would think that a burger joint with the word “fat” in it and a high fat diet going hand in hand would be a no-brainer, however… I am still epicly impressed with Fatburger! One night we were feeling a bit lazy so we figured we’d have some burgers. I was getting a little tired of McDonald’s crap (especially because it’s literally in the same building where we live), and since I’d never been there before, we decided to give Fatburger a try. Once I read through their menu and they said that you can order any burger with no bun and they will wrap it in lettuce for you, and add on to that that they have awesome burger additions such as guacamole and egg… I was sold! I ordered the old style bacon cheddar burger with egg and no bun… and this is what I got: (top right)

I know the image quality is not the best, but they practically made a bun out of lettuce, wrapped it in a nice little paper wrap so you can hold it… it was actually edible as a burger instead of the usual bunless burger where you have to drag out the old fork and knife! And aside from presentation, it was delicious! Definitely going to be visiting fat burger again!

Fail Muffins 😦Someone on /r/keto posted a link to a blueberry muffin recipe the other day, and it sounded pretty good! Since I’m not a huge fan of blueberries, I decided to modify it and turn it into a chocolate strawberry muffin recipe. I added 1 tbsp of unsweetened cocoa powder, 2tbsp of chocolate protein powder, replaced the stevia with 2 tbsp of Splenda, and replaced the unsweetened almond milk with unsweetened chocolate almond milk. And of course, replaced the blueberries with strawberries. The whole apartment smelled amazing for the entire time they were in the oven, and I was super excited to try them… and then I pulled them out of the oven and…. this is what they looked like: (look left)

They definitely didn’t look much like muffins… and somehow despite adding chocolate almond milk, chocolate protein powder, and cocoa powder, they had absolutely no chocolate taste to them at all. They were a bit too dense, but to be honest I’ve found that to be a trend when trying to bake keto foods with almond and/or coconut flour… unfortunately they just don’t rise the same way that regular flour does. They tasted just okay… edible, but not something I’d make again. Even my cat took it upon himself to toss one into his water dish 😦

Progress ReportSo this week I am officially back on my way to my goal! Not only have I lost 2lbs, but I was finally able to beat my rowing time from October 28th (2000m @ 11:49)… twice! 2000m @ 11:22 on November 13th, and 11:15 on November 15th. I think my times may begin to go up for the next week or two as I’m going to try and focus on increasing the distance before I need to take a break. This usually leaves me winded and impacts the over all time because I need to take more breaks after my initial “burst”, but I think if I can keep pushing it, eventually I will be able to do the entire 2000m in a single shot without needing breaks at all (which ideally will give me an awesome overall time).

I’ve decided to give myself a small reward once I reach 20lbs down, I’ll be sure to post a picture when I do! 🙂

I’m back in ketosis! Huzzah! So far I have lost about 5 of the 6lbs I gained over my birthday weekend… hopefully in the next day or two I’ll be back to where I was and on my steady way to my goal weight 🙂 So far I have successfully kept my net carbs at less than 20g per day consistently for the past week, and am fully back into my workout schedule.

Seattle!

Successful in Seattle I even managed to keep myself on keto while on a day trip down to Seattle (where I had no access to the googles to check carb values on foods due to expensive roaming data…) AND even though a medium coffee from Tim Horton’s has significantly more carbs than I had anticipated… For some reason a medium coffee with 2 cream and 2 Splenda from Timmy Ho’s has a whopping 6g net carbs! This makes absolutely no sense to me as a large Iced Coffee with Splenda from McDonald’s is only 2g net carbs (and 1 cup of regular homemade coffee with cream and Splenda is only 1g net carbs)… if anything I would have expected regular Tim Horton’s coffee to have fewer carbs than McD’s iced coffee, not more. I think I’ll stick to my iced coffees or homemade coffee…

Fat Fashion Fund Jar!

Fat Fashion FundI have added a new method of self-motivation to my repertoire; I started a “Dani’s Fat Fashion Fund”! For every pound I lose (retroactively) I will add $4 to the jar, and when I reach my goal weight I will use the jar money to buy myself some awesome new skinny people clothes! So far the jar has $60 😀 by the time I am at my goal weight it will be over $320.

Baked Avocado Eggs

New Recipes!So I know I am a little late to the game but, I have just discovered the amazingness that is avocados. Avocados are like… the most perfect keto food in existence. Super high in fat and fibre, and super low in net carbs. Today I made myself a baked avocado egg… it turned out pretty awesome! There are tons of sites out there with avocado egg recipes, but they’re all pretty much the same; cut avocado in half, take out pit, crack egg into the space, bake at 425 until the egg is done (10-20 min), top with spices/chives. Unfortunately the recipe I followed called for 1 egg per avocado half and well… I’m going to take a stab in the dark and say they weren’t using extra large eggs like I was. Next time I’ll know to use 1 egg per avocado instead 🙂 I also have a recipe for avocado fries that I’m excited to try, I’ll update once I’ve given it a go.

Monkey Bombs!

I also made fat bombs for the first time. I mentioned fat bombs in an earlier post, but didn’t actually get around to making them until today (mainly because I didn’t get over to Michaels until yesterday to get my silicone baking mold). So I started with this peanut butter fat bomb recipe and modified it a bit… I call them Monkey Bombs! 🙂 I replaced the Stevia with Splenda, and the peanut butter with Dark Chocolate Banana Monkey Butter, and left out the crushed peanuts (Monkey Butter already has bits of nuts in it). The original recipe has around 1.4g net carbs per bomb, and my version is slightly higher at 1.7g net carbs per bomb.

Ingredients:

1 cup coconut oil

1/2 cup Dark Chocolate Banana Monkey Butter

4 tsp granulated Splenda

8 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 cup butter

Directions:

Exactly like the original recipe, mix all ingredients in a pot over medium low heat until melted and well blended.

Place a silicone baking mold on top of a cookie sheet (I used a cutting board, as long as it is sturdy enough that it won’t flop around when transporting to the freezer).

Quest for Quest BarsMy last bit of good news for this post is that I finally found some Quest bars nearby! Quest bars are essentially just like every other protein bar out there, except they are super low in net carbs. They’re pretty popular on the keto subreddits, especially on /r/ketogains (the subreddit for keto in combination with exercise). I bought 4 different kinds; cookie dough (3g net carbs), mixed berry bliss (4g net carbs), peanut butter & jelly (4g net carbs) , and chocolate brownie (5g net carbs). I’ve tried all except the PB&J so far, and I think cookie dough is probably my favourite, followed by berry bliss. I’m not impressed with chocolate brownie at all… it tastes like someone burnt the brownies. This is especially unfortunate because the chocolate brownie flavour had a buy 3 get 1 free deal so I have 3 more to go through 😦

I wasn’t able to find ketostix at either of the health stores I went to for the quest bars, but I think I’ll be okay to keto on without them 🙂